March 14, 2018

Take a moment and think about how much content you see each day. Whether you are researching for work, leisurely scrolling through your Facebook feed or even just trying to buy a toy online for your little one – it’s there.

And that’s just on the internet.

Now think about your route to work. You turn on the radio and hear commercials. You pass by several billboards telling you to quit smoking or call this lawyer. You park your car and see someone handing out flyers about the newest gym opening down the street.

Content is literally everywhere – it’s inescapable, and it can be overwhelming.

However, content is also sneaky, and most of the time you don’t even realize that it’s being served to you in all directions. Luckily, the human brain prevents everyone from going into complete and utter overload from all of the messages that constantly bombard them. According to Psychology Today, it uses something called selective filtering, where one part of your brain literally tells the other parts to quiet down – it’s trying to concentrate on one thing at a time!

While this is great news for those who want to drive without constantly crashing because they’re reading every billboard passing by, it means that marketers must compete both with the content others are distributing as well as that part of the brain that would just really love it if everyone was quiet so it can focus!

Such is the constant struggle of businesses collecting leads – how do you cut through all the noise out there and get that part of the brain to focus only on your content for a little while? Even better – how can you double your business’s conversion rate?

What is a lead-generation assessment?

Basically, a lead assessment is a quiz that is built to increase the number of leads your business collects.

Let’s face it, no one is jumping in excitement to fill out forms with their email and contact information online. They don’t want to be bombarded by even more emails filling up their already filled inbox. How can a lead-generation survey offset the strong instinct to just hit that “X”?

Increases the rate at which your audience learns and retains information

Helps potential leads feel heard through a personalized experience

Here are three tips for creating a lead-generation assessment that will double your conversion rate.

Personalize your quiz

People only want content that is relatable to them – that’s the simple truth. Why would you take a quiz revealing which How I Met Your Mother character you are if you’ve never even watched the show? What the heck is a Marshall and should you be angry that you aren’t a Barney?

That’s the issue with so many lead-generation tactics – your potential leads don’t see what’s in it for them. They don’t understand how your business relates to them and how it can help their current situation.

This is why lead-generation quizzes are so helpful – they show how your business can solve a problem or improve a specific situation without providing long, forgetful explanations. The quiz literally asks what is important to them.

Hanneke and Rik from Eneco Netherlands – a natural gas, electricity and heat producer and supplier- created a lead-generation quiz in the form of a calculator to inform their potential leads how much an EVSE (electric vehicle service equipment) would cost.

As you can see below, the quiz questions were personal and asked the potential leads about their actual experiences. In fact, Eneco collected 1,000 leads in six weeks using their lead-generation quiz.

Another way to personalize your quiz is by using skip logic, which customizes the quiz based on the respondent’s answers. If the respondent answers their question one way, then the skip logic will show a follow-up question or provide relevant information and skip other questions that aren’t necessary.

If done correctly, these lead quizzes will both collect information from your potential leads and provide them with an idea of how you can help – without them even realizing that this is your goal. Before you create your quiz, understand exactly who your audience is and take a deep dive into what issues they might be facing or even just how you can improve their current situation.

Make your quiz fun with design & multimedia

Unless you’re Dwight Schrute, collecting leads doesn’t sound like the funnest way to spend your time, but a well-crafted lead-generation assessment could challenge that perception.

Each survey maker features its own design tools, so don’t shy away from them – make sure your survey is engaging and fun. According to Main Path Marketing, it takes about 1/10 of a second for someone to understand a visual scene and 250 milliseconds to not only process a symbol but also attach meaning to it. That means visual content will be especially important if it you are working in a complicated field. Websites such as Pexels, Pixabay and Unsplash provide free-to-use images.

But don’t limit yourself to just plain images. The year 2018 features a world filled with online videos, GIFs and – yes – memes. According to Wordstream, ⅓ of online activity is spent watching video, and Adweek reports that 300 million people share 2 billion GIFs each day. Using a mix of these types of content in your quiz will make it more engaging and hit different parts of your potential lead’s brains. However, wait until the fourth or fifth question of the lead assessment to insert GIFs or videos – this will help break up the routine of your quiz, ensuring that respondents continue.

However, don’t get so carried away with your design and multimedia choices that you make your lead-generation quiz too long – keep it short and to the point.

Incentivize, incentivize, incentivize

What can you give me?

Everyone loves free stuff – that’s pretty obvious. According to Annex Cloud, 69 percent of consumers stated that they would be more likely to try a brand if it provides them with rewards. That’s why offering a potential lead something in return for their contact information can solidify a “yes” in your exchange.

Your incentive can include something with monetary value such as a free t-shirt or Koozie from your business. It can also be something that’s simply useful for them such as a free trial, content upgrade, specific information such as a comparison of the respondent’s result with a benchmark or even just a coupon code as seen in the quiz below:

When creating a lead-generation quiz, make it clear at the beginning that the respondent will receive valuable insights – even if they choose not to buy your product. Also, ask for your potential lead’s needed information right before you offer them the incentive. They will want to see what it is that they “won” by taking the quiz, and they will feel accomplished with having received it.

Conclusion

There is so much noise that you must compete with when collecting leads. Content is everywhere, and you must make yours stand out in order to get potential leads’ attention. Lead-generation assessments will not only help you cut through all the commotion, it’ll double your conversion rate if you follow these three steps:

Personalize your lead-generation quiz so that it is easily relatable to your audience

Make your quiz fun to take by using different types of multimedia and design features

Provide incentives for your potential leads at the end of the quiz

Stefan Debois is the founder and CEO of Survey Anyplace, an online software tool to create engaging surveys, quizzes and assessments. Survey Anyplace is more playful than traditional survey tools and more affordable than interactive content tools.
Stefan is passionate about the potential of digital marketing, and more specifically about the use of technology to have meaningful online interactions with people - at scale.